Monday, September 15, 2008

Poll Results, New Poll

The results are in, and Nationals fans say that the team's biggest blunder in this season of blunders was letting Aaron Crow walk over $900,000. The full results were:
  • 45%--Crow
  • 18%--Refusing to pay stadium rent
  • 15%--Insulting Chad Cordero by announcing that he'll be non-tendered months in advance on sports talk radio
  • 5%--The Dominican Republic bonus-skimming scandal
  • 4%--The heinously awful TV ratings
  • 5%--Something else
I can't argue with the wisdom of my readers. I agree Crow is the biggest blunder. I'm somewhat surprised that the stadium rent got so many votes, since it really has no direct impact on the team's performance on the field, but I can see how it's galling to people, and certainly it could hurt the team's PR and in turn their potential gate income. I was also surprised Cordero didn't get more votes, since that incident got a big response at the time. Maybe the bad Crow memories were fresher. Fans seem to be withholding judgment on the allegations from the DR, which is fair. And the TV ratings I think seem like more a symptom than a blunder per se.

I wonder what the 5% who voted 'something else' were thinking. Signing Lo Duca? Re-signing Meat? Estrada? Just the losing, period? Not firing Bowden yet? If you voted 'something else,' or just have other thoughts, feel free to share in the comment.

With that, I'm starting a new poll. Forgive the narcissism, but I'm interested in what people would like to see me do if Bowden is in fact fired.

As you know if you spend much time here, the site hasn't really focused on JimBo since the earliest posts, so I would think anyone who's coming by now is interested in the general Nationals commentary. So I could just continue as is. However, I could also move to a new site and new site name, which might help build the audience long-term, though certainly some people would lose track of me if the URL changed. Or I could just end it and move on. I included a "keep hounding Bowden" option, mainly because the poll gadget works better if you have 6 options and I couldn't think of anything else, but that's not really a serious option. If everyone votes for that, maybe someone else will be inspired to make it their mission to hound Bowden for life (Jeff Shaw? Ron Oester?).

5 comments:

Mike said...

Join us at NationalsPride.com is what you should do! But naturally I'm biased.

Whatever you do, don't go away.

Nate said...

There's always "www.firetedlerner.blogspot.com".

Steven said...

Nate--I could get behind a critique of the ownership group.

First on my list (not yours, I know) would be retaining Bowden, but then after that the whole organization I think is set up dysfunctionally so that no one gets to hire the people who work for them. Manny didn't get to hire his coaches. Bowden didn't pick Manny. Kasten didn't want Bowden. Then Kasten sticks Rizzo in there under Bowden. They all inherited Dana Brown. It's just a total clusterfuck. A well-run operation has to have a clear top-down hierarchy and here it's all a mess.

And then the above ground parking garage.

And it seems like there are a lot of little customer service things taht get goofed, although since I'm not a season ticket holder I don't really experience most of that.

And then I think the payroll could be higher, and that would help some, but I think looking at the actual list of FAs over the last couple years that you and Chris and the other big free agency boosters should acknowledge that there are very few real difference makers there. By definition, older, declining players who some team thought wasn't worth re-signing long term in the first place. That's the reality, and this idea that Bowden could have gone out and bought us a contender if only mean old Stan hadn't stood in his way just isn't true.

So fine, add payroll to the list of things to complain about, but FA isn't the solution. I wish it was more promising, but the players just arent' there.

IPLawguy said...

I voted "something else," because I thought the big mistake was not signing one of last season's free agent to play CF. I was never excited about Andruw Jones, but I think Aaron Rowand would have fit here nicely. Or Torii Hunter.

Yes, keep the blog going either way. Firejoemorgan.com is still active, right?

Your round ups of the Natmosphere are quite helpful.

Steven said...

@Thomas--Thanks.

If you were going to spend money for a type-A guy last off season, CF clearly was the place to look.

I'm glad they didn't do those deals because I wouldn't want Hunter at 18m at age 38 or Rowand at 36. I think both those guys will be real albatrosses for their teams by the end of those deals (maybe sooner than that), and I don't want that when the Nationals' core of youth should be ripe and producing. Obviously Jones is younger and got a shorter deal, but we know how that worked out.

But like I said, if you were going to spend, that's the place I would have done it, so I see where you're coming from.